On Post Office Savings' Banks, Sfc. 55 



tBe conduct of tlie " Money Order" business of the country, we 

 will glance for a moment at the Post Office statistics of the 

 United Kingdom ; and what do they show us ? Why, that the 

 number of letters alone delivered at the several Post-offices 

 (numbering 11,314) in one year (1867) reached the enormous 

 amount of 774,831,538, weighing close upon 7000 tons, besides 

 over forty-two millions and a half, or nearly 3000 tons of 

 newspapers, and over fifty-nine millions and a half, or nearly 

 5000 tons of boot packets, yielding, together, a revenue exceeding 

 four millions and a half sterling (£4,548,129). 



In addition to the vast amount of work involved in the receipt, 

 sorting, and delivery of these letters, newspapers, and book- 

 packets, there was carried on a money-order system, under which 

 there were issued, in the same year (1867), no less than 9,348,410 

 money orders, amounting to £19,282,109, and there were paid 

 9,427,085 money orders, amounting to ,£19,688,704, together 

 making up a sum very little short of thirty-nine millions sterling. 



"When we contemplate these figures, and when we know that 

 the gigantic business involved in them did not deter the Post 

 Office authorities in London from undertaking to open Savings' 

 Banks at every money order office in the IJnited Kingdom, 

 through the instrumentality of which transactions were carried 

 on to the extent of close upon thirty-three millions sterling, in 

 the six years from their opening to the close of 1867, averaging 

 over five millions in each year, — I say, when we contemplate 

 these facts, we cannot help being struck with the wonderful 

 organisation which has surmounted the difficulties and made 

 smooth the path by which such stupendous results have been 

 efi'ected, and moreover with a regularity, precision, and disj^atch 

 which excites our wonder, and holds out an example for our 

 imitation. In the face of the great success which has marked 

 the establishment of these institutions in the mother country 

 and in the adjoining colonies, I don't think any one will question 

 the expediency of their being tried in New South "Wales, and in 

 the face of the facts adduced with reference to the practical 

 working of the system I think no one will be bold enough to say 

 that the organisation of the Post Office is not equal to the under- 

 taking ; indeed the only organisation upon which this important 

 duty could be cast. 



I haye not thought it necessary in the remarks which I have 

 ofi"ered to urge the political importance of this question. It is 

 upon the moral, social, and economic aspect of it that I base my 

 advocacy — not that I am insensible to the great political stability 

 which the lodgment of the savings of the industrious classes in 

 Grovernment securities is calculated to ensure. Grive a man 



